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doyleTitle: Action, Reaction (How to Survive)
Author: Doyle
Pairing: Lilah/Cordelia
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
voleuse for the Dangerous Women ficathon. Request was Lilah and Evil Cordelia, snark, knives or guns.
"How do you do it?" Wes asks her, stroking those long fingers across the small of her back.
"Mm. Years of practice," she says. "Plus a couple of months of yoga."
On top, pressed against his chest, his laugh rumbles through her like an earth tremor. "How do you survive Wolfram & Hart?"
Seen this close, that line of pale, puckered skin across his neck could be abstract art. She saw the medical reports. She knows how much blood he lost, that Justine attacked him from behind, exactly how long he lay on the ground.
"Same way everybody survives." Rocks against him, runs her tongue along the scar, left to right. "By not dying."
A year later, as she sees Cordelia bring up the knife, at the moment when her life should be flashing before her eyes, Lilah says, "Wait!"
All jokes aside, this is how to survive Wolfram & Hart:
Don't get lax. Anyone could have a knife at your back. Case in point, Cordelia Chase, saint in training turned psycho bitch would-be murderer - Lilah didn't think she had it in her, even if their little hive's clearly too small for two queen bees. This is the kind of surprise she'd enjoy if not for, well, imminent death.
Keep weapons at hand. She's fallen down on this one, badly, unless Angelus counts as a potential weapon. Shove Evil Cordelia at him and run?
Most important of all: be ready to talk your way out of anything.
With the blade right at her neck, close enough that a cough at the wrong second could turn the alcove into a Tarantino outtake, Lilah says, "Wait. I can help you."
**
They're pulling into Anaheim, and somewhere on their thirty-mile roadtrip Lilah must have been promoted from hostage to accomplice because Cordelia checks her lipstick in the passenger mirror and says, "Let's get Chinese food. I'm starving." Just like they're best girlfriends.
Lilah finds them a hotel, charges it to the Visa that doesn't have her real name on front. From their balcony, they can look out at Disneyland.
"I should've thought of this," Cordelia says, spearing a chunk of fried chicken. "I mean, not that Connor's not a sweet boy," said with a roll of her eyes and a break to chew and swallow, "but he's definitely got his dad's stalkery tendencies."
So apparently Cordelia's having Connor's baby, conceived when fire was falling out of the sky and Lilah was stuck in her office compulsively hitting the speed-dial to Wes's cellphone. When she talks about the brat it's 'my sweet', 'my sweet baby'. Lilah doesn't take this too seriously: most of the women at the office who cooed the loudest over their unborn offspring were the ones who took the big fat bonuses and showed off their thank-you notes from whatever demon clan was grateful for the 'donation'.
For a couple of minutes on the way out of LA, though, Cordelia's voice turned to cotton candy and she talked about when I'm born. Everything would be better, she said, stroking the wound on Lilah's side, and then the blood and the pain were gone, not even a scar left behind. Cordelia smiled her tripped-out smile and talked about the perfect world she was going to build. Everybody would hold hands and sing kumbaya and live in harmony and bliss.
This is the part of the apocalypse that Lilah's a little unclear on, but she's prepared to go along with it for now. The Beast works for Cordelia, and a shared employer's a good a guarantee as any that he won't be back to retry the shish kabob. Look at how long she worked with Lindsey and Gavin without killing them.
"Eat," Cordelia says, nudging a box of rice in her direction. "I ordered enough for three of us, there's a ton of stuff."
In its jar on the dresser, Angel's soul glows like an underachieving lava lamp. Lilah says, "Wonder if they've worked by now who swiped their soul."
"I bet they blame you." She points a chopstick at her, giving her that smile that says Cordelia's own soul's long gone. "I'm the good girl here, remember? They probably think you've got me tied up in the trunk of Angel's car." But Lilah doesn't get long to dwell on the image of her gagged and struggling, because she says, "They're gonna try to put it back. Somebody's gonna buy a clue and call Willow. That can't happen, understand?" The smile far harder, now, and it's clear in the voice that preventing this from happening is Lilah's job.
"Fifty thousand dollars, her last name, last known location," she says, already going for her phone. "Marcus charges high because he teleports in. Magic or not, she won't see him coming."
"Whatever. Skip can set you up with the money." For the all-new Cordelia, summoning a minion looks to be as easy as yelling, "Skip!"
The job's done before the leftover food's cold. Marcus gives her his discount rate, does it for forty-five. Lilah gets to keep the change.
**
The cashier smiles at Cordelia's bump. "You must be due any day."
She's closer than she knows. A week ago, she wasn't showing at all. Cordelia smoothes her hand across her stomach and says, "God, I know, I'm the size of a house. Hey, do you want to feel her kicking?"
Behind her, Lilah purses her lips against the smirk.
When she pulls her hand away the woman looks troubled beneath her glassy smile. "Gee, pretty active, isn't she? You sure it's not twins?" She's rubbing her palm against the leg of her uniform pants. "Or quads?"
After they leave, she'll run to the employee restroom, scrub at her skin until she bleeds. In the end, somebody will notice. They'll try talking to her, and when she scrubs harder at the blood they'll call the medics, and once she's strapped to a bed it'll make her worse, knowing that she can't even try to get it off her hands.
Lilah's laid her hand on Cordelia's bare skin and felt the thing writhing beneath, and she hasn't had so much as eczema. One more perk of sleeping with the boss.
She gathers up the bags as Cordelia says, "Well, gotta go. But we'll come back once the baby's been born."
"Yeah," the woman says, looking like she might cry. "You should… you should do that."
Walking to the parking lot, Lilah's thinking that this birth thing might not be so overrated. She's thinking that the sixteen-year-old Avril-clone two rooms down from theirs is more than likely a virgin, and not a loss to the world if they use her as a sacrifice. She's thinking that things could have worked out worse for her, and that the glow around pregnant women's not just a myth, and that Lilith's a good name for a girl.
Author: Doyle
Pairing: Lilah/Cordelia
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For
voleuse for the Dangerous Women ficathon. Request was Lilah and Evil Cordelia, snark, knives or guns."How do you do it?" Wes asks her, stroking those long fingers across the small of her back.
"Mm. Years of practice," she says. "Plus a couple of months of yoga."
On top, pressed against his chest, his laugh rumbles through her like an earth tremor. "How do you survive Wolfram & Hart?"
Seen this close, that line of pale, puckered skin across his neck could be abstract art. She saw the medical reports. She knows how much blood he lost, that Justine attacked him from behind, exactly how long he lay on the ground.
"Same way everybody survives." Rocks against him, runs her tongue along the scar, left to right. "By not dying."
A year later, as she sees Cordelia bring up the knife, at the moment when her life should be flashing before her eyes, Lilah says, "Wait!"
All jokes aside, this is how to survive Wolfram & Hart:
Don't get lax. Anyone could have a knife at your back. Case in point, Cordelia Chase, saint in training turned psycho bitch would-be murderer - Lilah didn't think she had it in her, even if their little hive's clearly too small for two queen bees. This is the kind of surprise she'd enjoy if not for, well, imminent death.
Keep weapons at hand. She's fallen down on this one, badly, unless Angelus counts as a potential weapon. Shove Evil Cordelia at him and run?
Most important of all: be ready to talk your way out of anything.
With the blade right at her neck, close enough that a cough at the wrong second could turn the alcove into a Tarantino outtake, Lilah says, "Wait. I can help you."
**
They're pulling into Anaheim, and somewhere on their thirty-mile roadtrip Lilah must have been promoted from hostage to accomplice because Cordelia checks her lipstick in the passenger mirror and says, "Let's get Chinese food. I'm starving." Just like they're best girlfriends.
Lilah finds them a hotel, charges it to the Visa that doesn't have her real name on front. From their balcony, they can look out at Disneyland.
"I should've thought of this," Cordelia says, spearing a chunk of fried chicken. "I mean, not that Connor's not a sweet boy," said with a roll of her eyes and a break to chew and swallow, "but he's definitely got his dad's stalkery tendencies."
So apparently Cordelia's having Connor's baby, conceived when fire was falling out of the sky and Lilah was stuck in her office compulsively hitting the speed-dial to Wes's cellphone. When she talks about the brat it's 'my sweet', 'my sweet baby'. Lilah doesn't take this too seriously: most of the women at the office who cooed the loudest over their unborn offspring were the ones who took the big fat bonuses and showed off their thank-you notes from whatever demon clan was grateful for the 'donation'.
For a couple of minutes on the way out of LA, though, Cordelia's voice turned to cotton candy and she talked about when I'm born. Everything would be better, she said, stroking the wound on Lilah's side, and then the blood and the pain were gone, not even a scar left behind. Cordelia smiled her tripped-out smile and talked about the perfect world she was going to build. Everybody would hold hands and sing kumbaya and live in harmony and bliss.
This is the part of the apocalypse that Lilah's a little unclear on, but she's prepared to go along with it for now. The Beast works for Cordelia, and a shared employer's a good a guarantee as any that he won't be back to retry the shish kabob. Look at how long she worked with Lindsey and Gavin without killing them.
"Eat," Cordelia says, nudging a box of rice in her direction. "I ordered enough for three of us, there's a ton of stuff."
In its jar on the dresser, Angel's soul glows like an underachieving lava lamp. Lilah says, "Wonder if they've worked by now who swiped their soul."
"I bet they blame you." She points a chopstick at her, giving her that smile that says Cordelia's own soul's long gone. "I'm the good girl here, remember? They probably think you've got me tied up in the trunk of Angel's car." But Lilah doesn't get long to dwell on the image of her gagged and struggling, because she says, "They're gonna try to put it back. Somebody's gonna buy a clue and call Willow. That can't happen, understand?" The smile far harder, now, and it's clear in the voice that preventing this from happening is Lilah's job.
"Fifty thousand dollars, her last name, last known location," she says, already going for her phone. "Marcus charges high because he teleports in. Magic or not, she won't see him coming."
"Whatever. Skip can set you up with the money." For the all-new Cordelia, summoning a minion looks to be as easy as yelling, "Skip!"
The job's done before the leftover food's cold. Marcus gives her his discount rate, does it for forty-five. Lilah gets to keep the change.
**
The cashier smiles at Cordelia's bump. "You must be due any day."
She's closer than she knows. A week ago, she wasn't showing at all. Cordelia smoothes her hand across her stomach and says, "God, I know, I'm the size of a house. Hey, do you want to feel her kicking?"
Behind her, Lilah purses her lips against the smirk.
When she pulls her hand away the woman looks troubled beneath her glassy smile. "Gee, pretty active, isn't she? You sure it's not twins?" She's rubbing her palm against the leg of her uniform pants. "Or quads?"
After they leave, she'll run to the employee restroom, scrub at her skin until she bleeds. In the end, somebody will notice. They'll try talking to her, and when she scrubs harder at the blood they'll call the medics, and once she's strapped to a bed it'll make her worse, knowing that she can't even try to get it off her hands.
Lilah's laid her hand on Cordelia's bare skin and felt the thing writhing beneath, and she hasn't had so much as eczema. One more perk of sleeping with the boss.
She gathers up the bags as Cordelia says, "Well, gotta go. But we'll come back once the baby's been born."
"Yeah," the woman says, looking like she might cry. "You should… you should do that."
Walking to the parking lot, Lilah's thinking that this birth thing might not be so overrated. She's thinking that the sixteen-year-old Avril-clone two rooms down from theirs is more than likely a virgin, and not a loss to the world if they use her as a sacrifice. She's thinking that things could have worked out worse for her, and that the glow around pregnant women's not just a myth, and that Lilith's a good name for a girl.
no subject
on 2004-07-25 03:24 pm (UTC)And ack! They killed Willow!
no subject
on 2004-07-25 03:27 pm (UTC)